The present invention relates to control for equipment connected to a network, and more particularly, it relates to a dispersed input and output system for performing dispersed input and output processing for the equipment.
Conventionally, in registering a document composed of a plurality of sheets as a job in a document handling function, an input operation has been carried out taking a great deal of time, if the document is composed a large number of sheets. In the case that color sheets as well as black and white sheets are mixed, these sheets are treated as similar content characteristics, or alternatively, the sheets are divided in accordance with different content characteristics to perform a registration operation, and after the registration, the divided jobs are integrated.
As described above, it is now assumed that a certain document is composed of a plurality of sheets. When such a document is registered as a job in the document handling function, an input/registration operation takes a great deal of time, if the document is composed of a large number of sheets. In addition, if the sheets having different content characteristics, such as color, and black and white sheets, are mixed, it is impossible to change attributes including input conditions, and so on. For example, the following problems have been inherent. If the first half of the document is composed of a large number of monochromatic sheets, then a black and white, and low-resolution input from a high-speed input device is proper. On the other hand, if the latter half of the document is composed of color sheets, then a color and high-resolution input from the input device is proper. Such a document is first divided into bundles, entered from one or a plurality of devices, and registered as a plurality of jobs. Then, these bundles are integrated by given means (e.g., application for processing an image), and lastly registered as one job. It is possible to employ such a method. However, it necessitates an operation for integrating the jobs. In addition, information before the job integration may be lost, making it impossible to obtain an output result matching the device characteristic (e.g., black and white, or color), and a document state (e.g., double-sided sheet) of the input time, when an output is made later. Furthermore, if one failure or another occurs in a document input and output device during its input operation, information that has been entered becomes invalid, necessitating the re-execution of job registration.